The authoritative list of tools, shell behavior, and environment guarantees in each DebugBox variant.
This page is derived from the source-of-truth manifest.yaml in the repository.
All variants run as root by design (required for debugging privileges).
Variant Inheritance
lite : includes base
balanced : includes everything in lite
power : includes everything in balanced
Tools marked with a check are included in that variant and all higher tiers.
Shell & Environment
Feature
Base
Lite
Balanced
Power
Default shell
ash
ash
bash
bash
Prompt
✓
✓
✓
✓
Editor (default)
vi
vi
vim
vim
Pager
--
--
less
less
Locale
C.UTF-8
C.UTF-8
C.UTF-8
C.UTF-8
Shell Helpers (/etc/profile.d)
Helper
Lite
Balanced
Power
Description
ll()
✓
✓
✓
ls -alF (long listing)
json()
✓
✓
✓
Pretty-print JSON
yaml()
✓
✓
✓
Pretty-print YAML
ports()
--
✓
✓
List listening ports
connections()
--
✓
✓
Show all connections
routes()
--
✓
✓
Display routing table
k8s-info()
--
✓
✓
K8s context & namespace
sniff()
--
✓
✓
Quick packet capture
sniff-http()
--
✓
✓
Capture HTTP (80/443)
sniff-dns()
--
✓
✓
Capture DNS queries
cert-check()
--
✓
✓
Inspect TLS certs
conntrack-watch()
--
--
✓
List active conntrack entries
Networking
Tool
Lite
Balanced
Power
curl
✓
✓
✓
netcat-openbsd
✓
✓
✓
iproute2 (ip, ss)
✓
✓
✓
iputils (ping, arping, tracepath)
✓
✓
✓
bind-tools (dig, nslookup, host)
✓
✓
✓
tcpdump
--
✓
✓
socat
--
✓
✓
mtr
--
✓
✓
nmap
--
--
✓
iperf3
--
--
✓
ethtool
--
--
✓
iftop
--
--
✓
tshark
--
--
✓
ngrep
--
--
✓
tcptraceroute
--
--
✓
fping
--
--
✓
nmap-nping
--
--
✓
nmap-scripts (NSE )
--
--
✓
TLS /SSL
Tool
Lite
Balanced
Power
openssl
--
✓
✓
System & Process
Tool
Lite
Balanced
Power
htop
--
✓
✓
strace
--
✓
✓
lsof
--
✓
✓
procps (ps, top)
--
✓
✓
psmisc (pstree, killall, fuser)
--
✓
✓
ltrace
--
--
✓
Kubernetes & Control Plane
Tool
Lite
Balanced
Power
kubectx
--
✓
✓
kubens
--
✓
✓
Data Processing
Tool
Lite
Balanced
Power
jq
✓
✓
✓
yq
✓ (apk)
✓ (apk)
✓ (pinned binary)
Note on yq: All variants include mikefarah/yq (the Go-based YAML processor), not the Python kislyuk/yq wrapper. Lite and balanced install yq from Alpine packages; power uses a version-pinned, SHA -verified binary for reproducibility. The syntax is the same across all variants (yq '.key' file.yaml).
Filesystem & Version Control
Tool
Lite
Balanced
Power
file
--
✓
✓
tar, gzip
--
✓
✓
git
--
✓
✓
Routing & Firewall (Power Only)
Tool
Power
iptables
✓
nftables
✓
conntrack-tools
✓
Guarantees
Deterministic: Critical tools (e.g., yq in power) are version-pinned and SHA -verified
Transparent: Only documented tools included, no hidden packages
Secure by default: Scanned with Trivy on every release
Root access: All images run as root for full debugging capability (ephemeral use only)
→ Variants Overview | Image Tags | Examples
July 16, 2026 09:24:06 AM